


Salvation

by tatarrific



Category: South of Nowhere
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 08:15:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2500880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatarrific/pseuds/tatarrific
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is your brain on drugs</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salvation

FIC: Salvation [South of Nowhere] (Spencer/Ashley)  
Title: Salvation  
Author: sugarmomma  
Source: South of Nowhere  
Rating: Teen (some sexuality and drug use)  
Disclaimer: South of Nowhere, its characters, etc. do not belong to me.  
A/N: Slash.  
Summary: This is your brain on drugs

************

Peace is fleeting. Peace is what I learned to settle for; contentment seemed to be furtively out of reach. Peace, when my parents fought. Peace, when mom's boyfriend tried the lock on my bedroom door. Peace, when I feel the derisive appraisal of the entire school on my back.

Peace, above all, when the thought of her lips on his leaves this gaping, aching emptiness in my chest. Contentment I gave up on. Peace I could still obtain. I feel Paige's hand on my thigh and look up at her. She lifts her eyebrow in question. I nod.

Peace comes at a price.

Paige has always been a good kisser, I had forgotten that. She can sense that tonight she can get away with more than usual, and when she pushes me against the wall in the club's bathroom and fists her hand in my hair, pulling my head back, I don't push back, I don't reassert control. I just close my eyes. Her lips are on my throat then, a payment for her victory, and I try to remember the time when I actually found her exciting. The emptiness yawns again within me. Of course. Before Spencer. Before believing I was good enough to warrant her affection, her... love? _Her lips on his._

I push off, needing to draw myself away from that precipice. Paige is here. Paige will have to be enough. Paige knows how the game is played. She won't be fooled by lingering touches and surreptitious glances. When I push her onto the settee and straddle her I can see that, probably despite herself, she likes that the old Ashley is back. I can oblige. I use teeth when I kiss her and am tempted to draw blood. She likes it, of course and when I skirt the column of her neck with my lips and bite down at the base of it, I can anticipate the tell-tale signs of her excitement. I used to relish wielding my power over her. Every hitched breath, arch of the back, a hand fisted around the bedsheets – I would tally them all up and write out the score. Paige knows how the game is played. The anticipated taste of victory, however, is ashen in my mouth now. And yet, old habits die hard. For what I need from her we will have to go to my place, so I pull her up.

_Her lips on his._ I close my eyes against the thought, against the image, against this acid ball of despair in my chest, eating away at me from inside. I feel Paige's hand on my arm and step back. There is too much _wrong_ happening all at once, I am unsure if I will be able to keep it all away this time.

Paige knows how the game is played. She will tolerate no incursions on her favorite playtime, and when she takes out the baggie of pills and offers it to me, my mouth goes dry. Peace is at hand. _Her lips on his._ I open my palm. Paige presents me with her version of salvation. I take it.

Peace comes at a price.

Peace is this: muffled sounds and the easy languidness of mental miasma and, blissfully, absolute lack of concern. Paige is angry, Paige is about to leave without getting what she came here for, Paige will probably steal something or break something on her way out and there is not a speck of care in me about it all. I feel the firmness of my mattress below me and, if I could, I would just cocoon myself in this shell of bed covers and alcohol and drugs for ever. I like this. This is easy. This is well-known.

There are voices now, and I let myself imagine one of them is Spencer's. It doesn't hurt to think about her when I'm in my little cocoon. Spencer. It is too easy to repaint her face on the backs of my eyelids.

I feel the bed dip and the faintest glimmer of annoyance filters through. I had told Paige to leave. A hand lays on my forearm and uncovers my face and when I open my eyes her face is still there. Spencer.

She is talking, then, and saying things that make me wonder how lucid I am, and I need to tell her, warn her of what choosing me might mean. Spencer is not Paige; Spencer doesn't know the rules of the game. She thinks the hardest part is behind us. She wants to give us a chance. A chance at what, I wonder. Spencer is not Paige. Spencer offers me the kind of salvation I may be too scared to accept. My head bows under the weight of her gaze and I lay it in her lap, a mute admission of my fear. She accepts that lack of answer the same way she has accepted me, with grace and patience.

I close my eyes. Enveloped in the cocoon of her arms I taste contentment for the first time.  



End file.
